Subject: Yankee Doodle

From: [email-masked]
Date: Thu, 23 Jun 1994 14:56:54 EST

My partner, Hugh Mason, always hums Yankee Doodle when he eats macaroni.  He
also begins every statement of questionable veracity with " It's a
well-known fact."

Here's his latest:  " It's a well-known fact that :

The words  and music for Yankee Doodle were originally Dutch.  It was a
work song for harvesters and "Yanker dudle" were simple-minded gleaners of
grain.

By the 1600's the English had swiped the tune and when the Royalists fought
the Puritan Roundheads, the Cavaliers mocked Cromwell's ride from Cantebury
to London with the same old tune and these words:

Yankee Doodle came to town
On a Kentish pony
Stuck a feather in his cap
And called it Macaroni

In London, during the 1770's Macaronis were young bloods who had completed
the Grand Tour and who dressed extravagently in odd Italian styles with
amazing wigs.  Macaronis were considered  dandies and exquisites.  They
even had their own Macaroni Club.  

One of Mason's ancestors was a Macaroni.

How did it become a quasi-national air of the United States?

Bruce Fortnum
F&M
Toronto